In this episode, I take advantage of an in-flight travesty to take a break (not a pun), think back on a (half) year of podcasting, and why we're all here. What a weird year, eh? Let's jump straight to 2026.

Ray Hsu—poet, former academic, and mental health entrepeneur—discusses the invisible work of creativity and care in an age of AI. Our conversation weaves through mental health platforms, the notion of value, the allure of technology, and why both activist performativity and academic detachment miss the point.

In this episode, I chat with Natalie Monbiot, a founder and tech entrepreneur who speaks from her expertise from building one of the first AI avatar companies in the world, coining the term ‘virtual human economy.’ Natalie presents a fairly different outlook on AI technologies compared to many of the other guests I’ve had on this podcast. As someone who spends most of her time with criticisms of corporate tech and negative projections of AI’s impact on creative work and human ownership, I find this conversation especially important in learning about other perspectives on the areas of opportunity, work, compensation, and the future. In this episode, Natalie explains the technology behind digital cloning, what these clones – or digital twins – are often used for, and shares some visions of a world in everyone gets fair pay for their own virtual human doppelgangers. I hope you listen and enjoy. Love, Julia!

Paris Marx of Tech Won't Save Us joins me to discuss the environmental impact of AI, the unquenchable demand for more scale, and a brief history of the backlash against Big Tech. What does it mean for us when the billionaires who expected to be celebrated as heroes embrace their villain era? How can we maintain our focus when attention is such a dwindling resource?

Join me in a conversation with Korean-American poet and translator, Stine An, for a conversation about what technology means for cross-cultural connection, the pursuit of love, and understanding the self. We don't hold back on some of the complicated feelings we've had about unironically chatting with ChatGPT, and some interesting thoughts on how the uncanny valley theory reflects on the overwhelming uptake of AI amongst North American and Korean audiences respectively.

Professor Jeffrey Moro at the Maryland Institute for Technology and the Humanities (MITH) comes on the pod to discuss an intersection I've been obsessed with lately: superstition and technology. We discuss how Internet platforms, algorithms, and AI services are affecting our interactions with the ancient practices of horoscopes and conspiracy theories - just in time for spooky season! To read more about these topics and beyond, make sure to check out a super cool cluster on algorithms and the occult that Jeffrey, Tamara Kneese, and Briana Vecchione edited and published recently with the Association of the Arts of the Present Journal: https://asapjournal.com/cluster/algorithms-and-the-occult/

Join me in our first episode as I sit down with PhD candidate and Pornhub board member, Maggie MacDonald, on how AI is affecting all corners of the porn industry - from age verification to deepfakes.